Life's always gonna be a three ring circus, so you might as well enjoy it.

Email: ringmaster@dancingwithelephants.com

Voicemail: 1-206-I AM CRAB (1-206-426-2722)

Dancing With Elephants is a weekly, family-oriented podcast magazine from Chicago. Hosts Greg, Tonya, Nikolai (age 8) and occasionally Caleb (age 6) discuss current events and review podcasts, books, computer games, movies, and television shows affecting today's 'trying-to-juggle-it-all' family. A couple of personal family stories and a featured Podsafe song round out the show. The way we see it: "Life's always gonna be a three ring circus, so you might as well enjoy it."

We're trying something new here at DWithE...
A Video "Coming Soon" for an upcoming episode of DWithE.
This is our first attempt at something we hope will become a regular feature here at DWithE. Let us know what you think.

Items featured on this week's show:
You can find the NORAD Santa Tracker at www.noradsanta.org
Starting 4:00 AM MST you can call the NORAD Tracks Santa Operation Center at 1 (877) HI NORAD (1-877-446-6723)
or send an email to noradtrackssanta@gmail.com
You can also Track Santa through NORAD on Twitter using the handle: noradsanta

Read the article "Just how does Santa get round Earth in one night? By exploiting the space-time continuum" at Daily Mail Online

Due to poor administrative planning on my part, on or about Nov 17, 2008 we lost our Listener Line Number. So no more 206-399-LFNT. Now we have a new number and it seems just as appropriate. The Brand New Listener Line Number is 1-206-I AM CRAB (1-206-426-2722). Please use it in Good Health.

So you're probably asking yourself, "What's with the Grant's 2008 Advent Calendar Video Countdown." Well here's the story so far...

On Halloween, Nikolai, Caleb, and I released a video marking the start of the countdown to Grant's 2008 Advent Calendar. Grant thought the video was awesome and has since featured it in his Advent Calendar Feed and on YouTube.

We asked Grant if he wanted us to put together another promo video for Thanksgiving and he said he was keen on seeing what we could come up with but doubted that we could top the first video... Sounds like a challenge to us.

So we thought about it and came up with the answer... For the second video promo, we're gonna need video and pictures of even more people watching the countdown clock!

So here's what you do:
1) Pick a random spot on the video and play it back on your computer, iThing, or other video playing device.
2) Video tape or take a picture (or multiple pictures) of yourself staring at, watching, distracted by, engrossed with, etc., the countdown clock. Check out our earlier video for an example.
3) Email the final product to me at dancingwithelephants@gmail.com. Make sure to include names and/or websites in your email so I can make sure you get some credit.
4) Make sure to get your final product to me by Tuesday, Nov. 25th in order to make the Thanksgiving Day release date.

That's basically it.

Now there are some things you should think about when shooting your video or picture. First and foremost, this is a Family Friendly Podcast, so please keep images kid-friendly. The video will most likely end up on YouTube, so make sure what that you shoot is suitable, as far as you are concerned, for public consumption. The original sound will be replaced to feature "Christmas Brought Me You" by Jody Whitesides so don't worry about the audio. We're hoping for a montage of different images, so don't worry too much about pristine quality. I think I can handle most video types, if I have a problem I'll let you know. Gmail can handle files up to 20 MB, so keep that in mind. I think that's pretty much it for the basics, except to add, please feel free to share this with your friends and/or listeners.

Be creative. Use the video playback on your iThing to shoot the scene anywhere. Use your camera phone to take the video or picture. Use your iSight or webcam and a mirror to film yourself, filming yourself, filming yourself, watching the countdown. If your car has a entertainment system that handles video, use that for your setting. If someone can figure out how to get the countdown on a billboard in Times Square, I'd be most impressed. And I know that some of us talk with @_S_A_R_A_H on Twitter and I'm pretty sure her monitors can handle video. Anyway, have fun with the shot.

Now I could name names to encourage certain people that I know to help with this project, but I hesitate doing that mainly because I can't name everyone one and I live in constant fear of offending someone that I may accidently forget. That said, if anyone knows anyone from the cast of A Christmas Story (one of Grant's favorite movies) and you can capture them watching the countdown video, that would be great.

Each year, Grant Baciocco, Doug Price, Jody Whitesides, Greg Baciocco and especially Brandon Baciocco do a lot of hard work to make Grant's Advent Calendar podcast a success. Think of this as away of saying thanks and participating in the fun.

Finally, please take a moment to check out Christmas Brought Me You by Jody Whitesides which is available on iTunes.

This little trick allows you to Twitter websites you may come across while browsing Safari on your iPhone and not having to enter long URLs since it uses Tiny URL. And the best part is it takes only 3 clicks and no copy-paste.

The First thing you'll need is Twitterrific loaded on you iphone. The Free version works for this.

Next, you need to create the following two Javascripts as Bookmarks in Safari on the iPhone.

javascript:void(location.href='http://tiny.cc/?fullurl='+escape(location.href))
Call this one "Convert to TinyURL" or something like that.

javascript:window.location='twitterrific:///post?message='+escape(window.location)
Call this one 'Post with Twitterrific'. And there is no space between '?' and 'message'.

Now all you have to do is when you come across a link that you want to post to Twitter from your iPhone, go to your Bookmarks and click on Convert to TinyURL. This will open a new page in the process creating a TinyURL link to your original page. Click on the TinyURL and this should display the created TinyURL in the Safari address window. Now go to your Bookmarks and click on Post with Twitterrific. This will grab the TinyURL address and dump it in the Twitterrific enter text panel. Finish your post and hit send.

Naught Poem:
How many knots would a Naught not knot if a Naught didn't know how to knot? He would not knot as many knots as a Naught could not knot as long as a Naught could not knot knots. But if a Naught learned to knot knots, then it would knot more knots than it could not knot before it learned to knot knots.

On this week's episode of DWithE, we go up to Green Bay, Wisconsin to spend the day with Chuck, Julie, and Liisa Tomasi and watch Chuck attempt to kick 200 times in 2 minutes. Thanks to Chuck for this weeks album shot.

SILLY PUTTY
2 parts white glue
1 part liquid starch
food coloring
Mix until it achieves the 'right' texture. If the silly putty is too sticky then it's too gluey, add more starch. If the silly putty won't stick to itself then it needs more glue. Store in airtight container in fridge.

OOBLIK
Water and cornstarch
Can't remember the proportions, play around with it. It should flow like a liquid but when you press it feel like a solid, you can roll a ball in your palms for example.

Tina of tinatheartist.com wrote to tell us about her new compact top loading-front loading washing machine.

Jody called to wish Nik a belated Happy Birthday and make sure how we did ourfirstname@dwithe.com because he was having sending us email. Well ourfirstname@dwithe.com and ourfirstnames@dwithe.com both work, so use either one Jody.

Paul emailed us with a link to The Ossuary which is a church made with human bones and talk about Poutine. Congratulations to Paul and his wife, Katherine on the birth of their daughter, Kira, born July 4th. Also, if you hanker for some good pierogies, check out Kasia's Deli.

Amy M of South Carolina emailed to say she's with Greg, Peanut Butter and Chocolate make the best ice cream.

Matt of Pizza Go Here called to talk about the Traditions Episode of DWithE.